He gave me a small nod, and I returned it, not trusting myself to do anything more. Moving with the rest of the line, he was soon behind me again, and I felt my lungs start to work once more.
Our row rose and moved to the end to get into the line. Grayson stood to the side, allowing his wife and daughter, and then myself, to go ahead of him. We moved slowly to the front. Whoever was speaking with my father right now had pretty much stalled the whole process.
“So, it’s over with you and Stick?” Grayson said quietly in my ear as he stood behind me.
I nodded and turned to face him. “I imagine that makes everybody pretty happy. No need to explain him on the campaign trail this summer.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, just nodded a tiny bit and looked thoughtfully at Caro’s casket. “As a campaign runner, yes. As someone who has come to know the both of you? No, I can’t say I’m happy about it.”
I didn’t have an answer for that, so I stayed quiet. We moved a few more steps ahead and then stopped again. Another chatty someone was with my father.
“You know,” Grayson said, again quietly enough that only I could hear him, “Stick called me the night Lucas was arrested. After I’d talked to Lily. Apparently he was in the room when that call took place?”
I nodded. Yes, he had been. And I’d been there too.
“Well, he called me shortly afterward and asked if he could offer himself up instead. If instead of making Lily give up Lucas, I would give Stick to the DA in return for Lucas’s freedom.”
“He had mentioned that before. But we thought getting you involved was the better choice.”
Grayson nodded, seemingly approving of what had been my idea at the time. I think in some sick way, he’d admired me for it. It was obvious now that he admired Stick just as much for what he’d done. “All this selflessness. From all three of you. Who says the youth of today only think of themselves?”
The line started moving again, and we were now in front of the casket, so I didn’t say any more to Grayson. I knew I should be saying my farewells, or at least thinking about Caro. But I’d said my goodbye to her in person, and this box in front of me did not symbolize the woman I’d come to know much better in the past few months.
Instead, I thought about what Grayson had just told me. I’d known Stick had a skewed sense of integrity. I mean, he was a car thief, but he also would have gone to jail for Lucas in a heartbeat. Had brought it up to Lily and me, and when I’d said we’d go with a different plan, he’d gone directly to Grayson to try and make the deal.
That must have been when he’d entered Grayson’s radar. And Grayson Spaulding knew how to use people to their best advantage. And his.
And not just wanting to take the heat for Lucas, but the way he was standing behind Shelly, when he wasn’t even one hundred percent sure the baby she was carrying was his. And selling his beloved cars to help out with expenses. How good he was with Caro, and apparently his dying father as well.
He called me fierce the day of the interview filming. If I was fierce, Stick was…ferocious. And loyal, and an all-around Stand-Up Guy.
I mean, I knew I was in love with him. I knew that I…cravedhim. But standing here, waiting my turn to pay my respects to my siblings and father, I realized I…likedStick.
At that moment, I looked past the crowd and saw him at the very back of the gathering, watching me. I almost broke line and went to him, but before I could, he turned and walked away, disappearing down the slope of the hill, peeling his suit jacket off as he did.
Done with the world that required him to wear suits.
Find her. Be her…and let the rest of the bullshit go.Montrose’s words played over and over in my head.
The rest of it—my father’s campaign, Stick’s and my different backgrounds and futures, him getting someone pregnant—while not insignificant, was indeed bullshit. And I needed to let it all go.
I needed him in my life. That’s who I was. I had found her.
I was someone who didn’t give up.
“We never did negotiate my continued involvement with the campaign,” I said to Grayson.
I expected him to balk at that. Remind me of the car, tell me it wasn’t the time or place to discuss it. “What’s your price?” he said instead.
“I want Stick to be able to go to nursing school next year—if he wants to.”
I waited for him to say he couldn’t pull those kinds of strings, but he only said, “And?”
I smiled. The man knew me much better than my own father did. “And I want Amanda Teller’s phone number.”
He raised a brow at that, but didn’t try to talk me out of anything, or ask what I intended. “And?”
“And you better start preparing some kind of spin, because I intend on making it work with an ex-car-thief who has an out-of-wedlock baby with another woman.”
